A group of "blood-stained" and bandaged parents paraded at NSW Parliament House today, calling on the Family Court to stop ordering children to see abusive parents.
With arms in fake slings, artificially bruised faces and broken dolls in prams, about 30 mums, dads and grandparents took part in the "Bandage Parade" hoping to highlight the danger of giving unsupervised custody of children to abusive parents after separation.
"We have a systemic failure when more than 15,000 Australian children are ordered into ongoing contact with parents the court itself has deemed violent and abusive," National Council for Children Post-Separation (NCCPS) spokeswoman Barbara Biggs said.
"This has happened because of hastily written shared-parenting laws and the Family Court turning a blind eye to abuse when it comes to its duty of care for Australian children."
Ms Biggs also said parents were forced to conceal claims that their child was being abused, for fear of losing custody of their children.
"If you can't prove (abuse) beyond reasonable doubt, then you have to pay the court costs and risk losing custody of the child because you are deemed a dangerous parent for poisoning your child against the father or mother," she told reporters.
"You have to make a choice - agree to some custody with an abusive ex-partner or risk losing custody. What do you do?"
One mother, who took out an apprehended violence order against her ex-husband for abusing her in front of their four-year-old daughter, said she was at a loss to explain why her daughter was still forced to see her father.
"They (the court) gave us a child psychologist expert that only spent 20 minutes alone with my daughter and she was too frightened to say anything," she told AAP.
"I don't see how it's in the best interests of my daughter. She's really frightened of him."
Ms Biggs said NCCPS would continue marching until December, when the family law would be reviewed.
"We are a group who care about the physical, emotional and psychological wellbeing of our children and until that is part of family law - not the parents' right to access their children - we will continue to have these problems," she said.
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